


Safety Net

by Miraphina Atherton (mew_tsubaki)



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, spoilers for s18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29596809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mew_tsubaki/pseuds/Miraphina%20Atherton
Summary: It's the weekend, but Bishop reluctantly takes Torres' call anyway after a whole week of his stalling.
Relationships: Ellie Bishop/Nick Torres
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Safety Net

**Author's Note:**

> The NCIS characters belong to Donald P. Bellasario, not to me. Something positive following the events of "The First Day." ;w; Read, review, and enjoy! *Note: This is set after s18e7, "The First Day," so some major spoilers ahead.

She had just curled up on her couch with a new book—one of life's rare indulgences these days—and barely had time enough to pry the cover open when her computer chirped. Then it chimed and rang.

Bishop groaned. Skype? Really? She'd just spoken to her mother and brothers this morning. So Skyping with them now really wasn't in her plans for the weekend…

Begrudgingly, the blonde set her mint-condition tome aside and pulled her computer into her lap…and made a face, letting it ring for a little longer. As she replayed this week in her head, this wasn't a name and number she wanted very much to chat with, either.

Still, the polite side of her won out, and she clicked to answer Torres' call. "Hey," she said, her tone a little flat.

Torres chuckled—she guessed he wore that cocky little smile, though she wouldn't know, since she had her video turned on and he was voice-only like usual—and softly sighed. "I was beginning to think you weren't gonna answer, Bishop."

She pursed her lips into a flat line and settled her camera with an even stare. It took a lot of effort not to cross her arms in front of her for added effect.

Now he groaned. " _Ellie_ , come _on_ ," he drawled, pulling out his emphasized words like a puppy trying not to whine.

Bishop huffed. It was hard not to give him some attitude, even if she had enough presence of mind not to point out precisely why she had no desire to chat with him at this second. And who would, in her shoes? All week, she'd been sincerely asking him out to dinner, and each and every time Torres had replied with "Rain check?" So…yeah. She was a little grumpy. And a bit confused. And definitely not in the mood to chat with this happy-go-lucky dork right now.

"Ellie, hey."

Nevertheless, just like that—even with his video turned off, his voice pulled her attention back to the blank, black portion of the split screen, and she thought she felt his eyes on her anyway. "What, Nick?" She couldn't help but hear him out (this ought to be good).

A brief silence. The tiniest of breaths—maybe he smiled, maybe he was pulling a face. "Look, I…I wanted to assure you that I plan on cashing in all those rain checks. Really, I do."

Her heart skipped a tiny beat.

"But…"

"But what?" Good grief. Did there always have to be a "but"?

Torres' short exhale she knew accompanied his grimace, the one he made when he was uncomfortable. "But—I mean. Grabbing lunch or something at work is one thing, Ellie. Happening to hang out on the weekend is one thing. But…"

"Oh." Bishop blinked. …of course. How could she have been— Obviously this wasn't— It didn't matter that last year had— All Eleanor Bishop could think in that moment was that maybe, just maybe, she had read way too much into their chemistry. And she dwelled on it, and the idea nestled and took root and grew bigger, threatened to overwhelm her the longer Torres let silence linger between them. She debated the merits of tearing her eyes from the blank screen to stare at a threadbare spot on the couch cushion, but the shock of this roundabout rejection made it hard to look away.

Torres, meanwhile, cursed in Spanish. The next thing Bishop knew, his video flickered on, showing him leaning against a gigantic bay window with a nice skyline past the window glass. Now she gaped for another reason.

"SONUVBITCH!"

He paled. "What'd I do?!" His wide eyes matched hers.

But Bishop dragged a hand over her open mouth. "No, I—that's a hell of a view, Nick!"

"Oh." Torres blinked. He twisted to glance at the sight over his shoulder. When he turned back, he'd regained his footing enough to smirk a bit at her. "It's a little different from your place," he teased.

"No kidding!"

Despite the sudden revelation of even this smidgeon of his top-secret, under-wraps apartment, the joking didn't keep the atmosphere lighthearted for long. That was evident in how Torres' smirk faded. His brow pinched together in concern when he resumed their conversation. "I figured this was a conversation better had face to face, so to speak," he mumbled.

Bishop frowned. His demeanor didn't worry her any less, but she noted the way he leaned in towards the frame, let alone had deigned to turn on his video for the first time from home. So she leaned in, too, this time readier to listen.

Torres scratched the side of his neck and squinted, all nerves. "Ellie… Showing someone my place is a—a Big Step, capital B, capital S, for me. But so is making real dinner plans…and that's scary."

She furrowed her brow. "Well, I guess I understand having someone over, Nick. But the rest…" Bishop mustered half a smile. "You'll have to explain it to me, but I'm here and listening, you know."

He grimaced again, his shoulders slouching ever so slightly. "I've been thinking about Jimmy and his situation a lot lately. And it—it highlights for me how much someone stands to lose by taking certain risks."

Bishop frowned. She'd tried not to think too actively of the Palmer family these last couple months…but who could truly avoid it? Seeing Jimmy without Breena was like watching a man walking around without his soul. And that was hard enough before she thought about Jimmy trying to raise Victoria on his own and Victoria still being too young to understand fully the loss of her mother.

"At the same time," Torres continued, "I also keep thinking about how I joined the team."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"I always believed that being an undercover agent was best. That it'd be fine. That it'd keep my family safe." He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Of course, it didn't. Lucia almost died precisely because real-life villains wanted to drag me out into the open. So that safety net of so many aliases, of that spycraft? It's—it's gone, Ellie." He hesitated, a deep, dark, faraway look in eyes lingering for a moment. Then he met her eyes. "…trying to have anyone else precious in my life without even better precautions or safeguards in place? That's—I can't fathom that."

When he finished, they welcomed silence for a while, occasionally staring at each other, sometimes letting the stares turn into shy glances that always led to Torres being the first to look away. Bishop wondered if he'd determined to clear up her confusion over their chemistry by properly video-chatting with her, but perhaps he'd ended up saying far more than he'd intended. Despite her annoyances with him this week, she wished in that second to be beside him and lean against his arm and let him know it was all right, nothing to be [too] embarrassed about.

(Besides, the teasing side of her noted, the flustered side of Nick Torres was pretty adorable.)

Eventually, Bishop eased into a smile, which caught his attention. "Nick, do you regret your decade of undercover work?"

He blinked a few times, likely caught unawares by the abrupt change in topic. Torres twisted his lips around and grumbled something about "hindsight." Then: "Well…I'd be lying if I said I held no guilt over George's death. But otherwise no. Because I know how much good I did in my undercover days."

"So the risks," she pointed out, "for you, are always worth it."

Torres opened his mouth to protest.

But Bishop cut him off. "Nick, come on. _You_ started this conversation by informing me that you plan to cash all those rain checks." Her smile was wide but gentle. "So weren't you really calling to tell me that _this_ "—she gestured between the two of them—"is worth the risk?"

Torres deflated…but it was a relieved, how-did-you-know-what-I-was-going-to-say motion, complete with a hint of those puppy eyes. He returned her smile and answered, "Yeah."

And that "Yeah" was all she needed. The world had come to a halt this past year and Torres was moving at the pace of a glacier, but "Yeah" was good. "Yeah" was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I'm still working on my s17 fics, *lol*. I…had not intended to write about real-world events in fic; NCIS is not my only fandom where the creators chose to include the impact of real-world events, and I want fanworks to be an escape from all that. That said, the NCIS universe has handled things p well (esp NOLA), but "The First Day" delivered some canonical details that rly hurt. So some Shower Thoughts™ happened when I swear I was just singing in my head, *lol*, and I literally had the final paragraph written right away, which never happens. Kinda bummed the writers decided to douse the flames they fanned on Ellick (and obvo this oneshot is unrelated to "[Redo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28948095)" and "[live hard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29098551)"), but I'm just gonna hold on to the one highlight for me which was the uncanniness of Torres' apartment—the way I'd described it in "live hard" and then seeing it in "The First Day" was EERIE! Anywho, I'm hoping for Bishop to continue to take charge and move their relationship forward/get it started in canon bc I'm p sure these kiddos want it to happen, not just us fans. (Thx for reading my dithering, everyone. ;w;)
> 
> Thanks for reading, and please review! Check out my other NCIS fics if you liked this.
> 
> -mew-tsubaki :')


End file.
